Dr Jelena Stojković
PhD
Senior Lecturer
School of Arts
Role
Jelena Stojković is an art historian and critic working on interdisciplinary approaches to modern and
contemporary visual arts in a transnational context. She is the author of The Impossible Avant-Garde:
Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan (2020) and a co-editor of Women Artists and Abstract Art in Postwar Rome: Connected by Travel (2026). She contributed exhibition catalogue texts to major museum shows such as Surrealism Beyond Borders (The Met, New York and Tate Modern) and Avant-Garde Rising: The Photographic Vanguard in Modern Japan (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum), as well as to solo shows by several contemporary artists, including Hayahisa Tomiyasu and Patti Gaal-Holmes. She was an invited speaker at the Hasselblad Foundation, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and the Japan Society, among other institutions, and she delivered several curatorial projects, in collaboration with the Belgrade Cultural Centre, the National Science and Media Museum, and The Photographers’ Gallery. Her criticism has been published in The Burlington Magazine, Source: Thinking Through Photography, and British Journal of Photography.
Jelena grew up in Serbia, and has a background in Oriental Studies, with a double BA in Arabic and Japanese (Language and Literature) from Belgrade University. In the UK she holds an MA in Art History from SOAS and a PhD in Photography from University of Westminster. At Oxford Brookes she is a Senior Lecturer in Photography, Critical Studies in the School of Arts, where she teaches on the hsitory and theory programme of BA Photography. Prior to joining Oxford Brookes, Jelena was Lecturer in History and Theory of Photography at the Arts University Bournemouth and Visiting Lecturer at the University of the Arts London (LCC and CCW). She was a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, a Balsdon Fellow at the British School at Rome, and a Japan Foundation Fellow affiliated with the University of Tokyo.
Teaching and supervision
Modules taught
Module leader:
- The Politics and Poetics of Looking, BA Photography
- Space, Place and Culture, BA Photography
- Media, Culture and Communication, BA Photography
- Ethics, Politics, Visual Narratives, BA Photography
- Written Research Project, BA Photography
Previous roles:
- External Examiner, Fine Art Theory, Middlesex University, 2019-2023
- Associate Lecturer, Fine Art Theory, Arts Unviersity Bournemouth, 2022-2023
- Course Leader for History of Photography and Photography in Japan, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2015-2023
- Lecturer in History and Theory of Photography, Arts University Bournemouth, 2018-2020
- Associate Lecturer, University of the Arts London (BA and MA Photography, LCC; BA Fine Art Photography, Camberwell; BA Textile Design, Chelsea), 2014-2018
Supervision
PhD supervision: James Elliott, second supervisor
Research
Transnational and interdisciplinary approaches to the history and theory of modern and contemporary visual arts and cultures, with a specific focus on historical avant-gardes (surrealism and abstraction) in East Asia and Southeast Europe; History and theory of film and photography; Art criticism and curation
Recent awards:
- British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, 2024
- Daiwa Foundation Small Grant, 2022
- British School at Rome, Balsdon Fellow, 2021
Recent projects:
- ‘Crossing Over: Women Artists, Abstraction, and Travel in Postwar Rome (1950s-1970s)’, one-day international symposium organised in partnership with the British School at Rome, 2024
- ‘Community, Memory, Archive’, artist residency for Jermaine Francis, co-organised with Dr Helene Kazan at CoRA, OBU, 2024
- ‘Thinking Japanese Photography’, curator of a two-day closing event for Daido Moriyama’s retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 2024
- Artist residency for Hayahisa Tomiyasu, co-orgnised with Modern Culture at CoRA, OBU, 2022
Research impact
- ‘Best Art Publication’, ICAS Books Prize 2021, International Institute for Asian Studies
Further information
- 'Abstract Art by Women Artists from Former Yugoslavia', paper delivered at the Women in Abstraction symposium (online), Pompidou Centre (2021): recording
- Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan: The Impossible Avant-Garde, Daiwa Foundation (2020) book launch recording
Publications
Professional information
Memberships of professional bodies
- Higher Education Academy (Fellow)
- Association for Art History (Member)
- British Association for Japanese Studies (Member).
Areas of expertise
- History and Theory of Art and Photography
- Historical Avant-Gardes (Surrealism and Abstraction) in a Transnational Context
- Japanese Art and Photography
Conferences
Recent Academic Conferences
- Surrealist Literature and Art, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Literature, 2026
- ISSS Surréalismes Paris, 2024
- AAH 49, 2023
- Globalising the Avant-Garde, EAM8, Lisbon, 2022
- Women in Abstraction: Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century, Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2021
Invited Speaker
- Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, 2019
- Courtauld Institute of Art, 2019
- Goldsmiths, University of London, 2019
- Japan Society, London, 2018
- Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, University of East Anglia, 2017
Consultancy
- Jury Member, After Nature Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize, C/O Berlin 2026
- Tutor Advisor, Blyth Art Fellowship, Arts Awards, Imperial College London, 2024-2025